The US was able to gradually pacify Iraq with a relatively small force (~100K men) because Iraq is mostly a no-man’s-land of vast stretches of desert. Ukraine is mostly forest or arable land, with no shortage of places for guerrillas to hide. The US also had a massive technology advantage because of a much larger procurement budget. The Russians will need a much bigger force to pacify all of Ukraine than the US used in Iraq.
If and only if the Ukrainians have adequate food and ammunition.
Good points.
Also, Ukrainian soldiers are very close in capability to Russian soldiers, whereas there was a wider advantage for American soldiers and marines over the Iraqi irregulars.
And the US had the advantage of the Iraqi government participating with them on most objectives, with lots of resources and incentives.
The Russian way of way inflicts a lot more collateral damage - artilery duels in the cities and such.
I wonder if the Ukrainians will adopt guerrilla tactics in occupied areas to bleed the Russians, like IEDs and snipers?
“The Russians will need a much bigger force to pacify all of Ukraine than the US used in Iraq.”
As I have noted many times since this began, I don’t believe Russia has any interest in taking over all of Ukraine. It’s a wildly corrupt economic basketcase, even by Russian standards, and almost all of the valuable assets are in the Southeast anyway.
Anybody paying attention when this began should have known that Luhansk and Donetsk would rebel, but I thought they’d be on the Dnepr long before now, down to Meltipol, opening the road network to Crimea.